Three Months
by EditionsOfYou
Summary: Danny McElroy clings to a final hope...


Another Price of Salt fic, This time its oriented around Danny McElroy, as Danny - despite being a minor character, was one of my favorite characters in the novel besides Carol Arid.

Danny was the good friend and love interest to Therese, whom she was considering towards the end along with the actress Geneviere Cranell.

This uses alot of book dialogue and alludes to its prose as well. This is a sort of what if, if Therese had spent more of the day with Danny when he visited her for the last time in Chicago, when she was about to go to New York and he was about to leave for California. I know The Price of Salt was published in 1952, but the purposes of this story it took place in 1953, as that's when one song mentioned is recorded.

(Also just as a side note- not that it matters: I've always imagined Danny looking like a young Gerald Finzi and Therese looking like Natalie Wood or Teresa Wright. As for Carol, I think a Kim Novak in Vetigo or Carol Lombard and Richard something like John Gielgud )

* * *

Three Months

He straightened out his hair again and tried to smooth down his cuffs and adjust his collar and lapels. He had chosen his peppery tweed woven suit jacket, with his worn leather elbow patches.

His clothes were rumpled, he thought disheartened, and these were his best clothes.

25 years old. And Danny McElroy still needed someone to remind him to do his laundry.

At least he was clean shaven. As hastily as he had shaved in the bathroom mirror while trying to smoke his pipe at the same time and tame his thick mop of hair into some semblance of neatness, still fogged through his earlier shower, he had finshed the job decently.

He had eyed himself in the mirror and grimaced afterwards. Wondering what Therese might think when she saw him, if he caught her.

If she showed rather.

Danny had not expected Therese to see him again, let alone spent the entire day with him. Albeit that had been his original goal

But one had to be willing to accommodate a friend.

This was because as per Therese's charming and evasive way, she had made a polite excuse yesterday during their lunch ,after he had surprised her in the hotel lobby.

Danny asked her after lunch if she might take the day off to spend his last day with him. Therese had told him she had to go to work before she went back. But they might catch a lunch together.

He wondered if she would forget it. Or if she would forget him.

To his relief and surprise, she hadn't.

"I wasn't expecting you. " Danny had said as they walked together this afternoon.

Therese looked clean herself, clever, and serene. "Why weren't you expecting it. "

"You told me not to expect you Terry." Danny managed an easy smile. " But I did hold some hope anyways, a little feeling of destiny."

"It wasn't destiny. I just remembered that I liked your company, much more than I do my work." Therese purred with that new-found wryness she had.

The way she addressed him made Danny want to laugh at himself. "And why is that I wonder?"

She answered, her lips subtly curling upwards. "You've never glib or dull. One doesn't have to make small talk with you and I'm very fond of anyone I can talk to."

Danny ran a hand through his loose mussed black hair, and he smiled his broad symmetrical smile with his white square teeth . "..."Then we must have some natural affinity then. Some people don't enjoy my inablity to make small talk. Its been a enormous hindrance to me in other areas. " He added . "Amongst my other shortcomings."

"Shortcomings." Therese smiled, seemingly amused at this statement. "I beg to differ. Why, I think thats one of your biggest strengths Danny."

"Not one of my weaknesses?" He chuckled back good naturedly. "Ah. Even without that one, there are plenty of others, too many to enumerate." The young man grinned wider . " I have many monumental problems Terry."

"Oh, we all have monumental problems. " She replied flippantly.

"Then allow me to tell you some of them Terry, and cry on your shoulder." Danny shrugged with some self-depreciating humor. " For one, I'm a awful procrastinator. "

" Are you?" Therese said lightly, chiding him. "What proof do we have to confirm that?"

" You'd like proof?" Danny said with a tone of regret. " I'm not even fully packed yet."

"So? There's still plenty of time today. You can still finsh your packing and I won't keep you." Therese reassured him. "We won't ever talk about those shortcomings of yours , because I still don't see any at all. Unpacked or not, you're still one of the strongest people I know."

Danny's smile strengthed with that. " Maybe you ought to to know more people then Terry."

" I know you, don't I. So I can overlook whatever shortcomings you think you have because you overlook mine." Therese said with sudden eloquent kindness. "That what friends ought to do."

And Therese allowed Danny to take her arm and said. "And thats why I wished to be your friend. "

"And I'm fortunate for that." Danny's brows raised. "And still am I hope."

"Ofcourse." Therese said. "Ofcourse."

They walked like this, arm in arm, with the camaraderie of good friends ,around the lumberyard at the Lake Shore Drive, at the edge of Lake Michigan.

Danny had never conceived that he would be walking with Therese in this place, in this manner, just the two of them. They were supposed to have gone to lunch again, but instead they were strolling in this picturesque scenery, so not to be distracted from eachother's company with a restaurant 's atmosphere or the task of eating.

As they did , Danny reminded himself that this kind of interaction was only temporary. He was going to move to Oakland for a job in laboratory research. But that reality seemed distant, as distant as New York and his student life when he had completed his graduate schooling at NYU studying physics.

That was all fast becoming and was already Danny McElroy's past life, his former self . To be thought of in the past tense. Before Danny could even comprehened it had happened, it was over, finished. Done.

And Therese Belivet- was once a disaffected shop girl with aspirations like so many young people in New York , was now a stage painter and designer with many opportunities ahead of her.

Danny felt proud of this fact and of her.

Danny also reflected on yesterday's lunch.

They had ordered steaks and cocktails, to match their celebratory, and adventuresome mood. Having such a decadent lunch seemed an appropriate and an adult thing to do, to mark and commemorate the rarity and importance of that occasion.

"You're here by yourself?" Danny had asked Therese then. "Your landlady in Sioux Falls told me you left by yourself."

Therese glanced into her plate. "...Carol couldn't come out finally.'

"Oh." Danny said, but knew that already. "And you decided to stay longer?"

"Yes." She nodded.

"Until when."

"Until just about now." Therese said. " I'm going back next week."

With Danny's dark thoughtful eyes fixed upon Therese's strangely calm countenance, he said. "Why don't you come out west, instead of East and spend a little time in California. I've got a job in Oakland. I have to be there day after tommorow."

Therese asked. "What kind of job."

Neither of them cared about what job.

"Resarching- just what I asked for. " Danny placated her, but gave her the shortest answer not wanting for them to dwell on the subject. "I came out better than I thought I would in exams."

"Were you frist in your class?" She asked him another question.

"I don't know. I doubt it." Danny had been, but that didn't matter one bit. He continued, not sound braggadocious, it wasn't his intent. He had not wanted the conversation to be diverted around his academic prowess or his exams scores . His thought of his diplomas in his suitcase. They might as well been faded like an old watered down receipt or an aging photograph. " They weren't graded like that. You didn't answer my question."

Therese said firmly. "I want to get back to New York, Danny."

"Oh." He smiled, but was disappointed at that answer.

They were silent for a moment.

During which Danny found himself staring at Therese's bold red lips, the color of smashed strawberry pulp or cherry grenadine like the maschino cherry floating in her Tom Collins. The rakish new tilt and torrent of her shining hair that allowed one to see her beautifully intelligent eyes and face more. It occured to him he had never seen her with so much makeup, and Danny did not usually notice such things.

Danny remarked ,as if it were slowly dawning on him, with a sort of sudden awe."...You look grown up all of a sudden. You changed your hair, didn't you."

"A little." She said.

"You don't look so frightened anymore." Danny continued, encompassing the sight of her with his complete concentration. " Or even so serious."

Therese smiled a little, slightly coy but mostly satisfied. "That pleases me."

As she did , she was admiring his hands on the table top. Danny noticed: Therese frequently stared at his large hands, the swell and musculature of his arms and shoulders .

"You did miss me a little, didn't you Terry?" Danny dared to venture after noticing this.

"Of course." She said again. There was a subtle tease in Therese's voice. Charged with something.

Danny adored it.

Adored her.

"Would you ever care something about me? As you did for Richard?" Abruptly Danny asked her , but had been surprised in his own forwardness in asking, as if it were a fantastic question.

It may well could be .

This fantastic question could have been prompted by their fantastic circumstances: that Danny was leaving, and because Therese was now unattached. There was no longer any impediments between them-except the soon to be physical distance. Alas, there always had to be something.

Presently, at the luncheon, sitting right across from her, there was no longer any reason for Danny not be upfront with her.

Danny had even looked for her and had admitted that he had asked her landlady in Sioux Falls- where Therese had lived briefly in some boarding house- in order to find her at that hotel, where she resided now. Danny had never 'searched ' in such a purposeful or sustained way to find a friend, or a woman before.

Danny had been even tempted to buy Therese a present, so happy and excited he was that he may have found her, and was going to see her, possibly an expensive bottle of perfume or a well-bound hardcover book on Reinassance painting, or a large impressive broquet of flowers (like he had once as an 'impromptu thing', just happening to stop in at the theater she worked back in New York).

Danny knew that he shouldn't. That was the action of a intimate or a suitor, not of a visiting friend.

In hindsight, Danny was glad he didn't give into that temptation. That would have been too forward, too much .

Like asking that question.

Danny chatised himself, if he had to be so forward, why did he have to lose his eloquence in the process?

The question was not even correctly put. Therese hadn't cared for Richard much at all.

"I don't know." Therese replied quickly.

"But you're still not thinking of Richard are you?" Danny asked.

She was thinking of somebody.

Therese said. "You must know I'm not."

"Who is it then?" The young man said softly, already knowing the answer. "Carol?"

Therese's mouth fell and stopped.

The young woman looked at that moment shaken. Off-guard and exposed.

"Yes... It was." She whispered.

Danny regarded her thoughtfully. "But not now?"

Therese seemed even more alarmed or amazed at lack of attitude, or surprise in Danny's tone.

She straightened in her seat, clutching the arm rests, mouth dropped open and stammering silently, as if unable to respond to it .

"...No... Its- ... I can't talk about to anyone about it Danny." Therese said finally, tone deep, grave and quiet.

 _You can talk to me._ Danny thought and frowned at her intently. _You can share, talk to me about anything. I'm your friend aren't I?_

 _Aren't I?_

"Don't you want to forget it?" He remarked with feigned nonchalance. " If its past."

 _Like I soon with be._

"I don't know. " Therese hushed. "I don't know how you mean that."

"I mean are you sorry?" Danny said pointedly.

He did not mean it in a moralistic way, or in a disrespectful manner.

Therese seemed to understand that at least. "No. Would I do the same thing again. Yes."

Being scientifically minded, Danny needed more specification.

The young man took a deep sip of his cocktail. "Do you mean with someone else, or do you mean her?"

"With her." The corner of Therese's mouth went up in a saddened smile.

Danny observed her worriedly . "...But the end was a fiasco."

"Yes. " Therese said with certainty . "I'd mean I'd still go through the end, too."

Solemnly, Danny remarked. "You're still going through it."

Therese said nothing to that.

After a considerable pause, Danny leaned his cheek agianst his hand . "...Do you mind me asking all these questions Terry?"

"No." Therese said with plaintive honestly. " I don't mind."

Danny's dark eyes contemplated her . "Are you going to see her again?"

"No. " Therese declared, looking him right back in the eyes. "I'm not going to see her again. I don't want to."

Danny stared back.

It wasn't that Danny believed Therese was being dishonest...

But somehow he didn't believe her.

 _What I mean to say is do you want to see me again._ Danny wanted to ask outrightly. _What I mean is could you ever care for me ,as you cared for her?_

 _Or more possibly?_

He didn't ask . Wouldn't ask.

He suspected that he already knew the answer again.

And even if Danny dared to ask her , he could not ask her that here or now.

Not at lunch . Not over steaks and cocktails.

These were the kind of questions that if they could be posed, would probably sound better written down.

One could say many things in letters that they could not say directly in life.

Danny remembered writing his correspondence to Colorado Springs that had prompted and allowed for this visitation to happen. However in it, he had left many things- the most important things, unsaid.

And Therese thought him incapable of small talk!

It was enough to make Danny laugh.

Little did Therese know.

There were many strenuous attempts to write that innocent missive to Therese.

Feeling it crucially important, Danny had tried to use his best penmanship , his most expensive pen. The one his father had given him for his graduation. (Using a type writer was unacceptable. It would have been too impersonal.)

The task had felt like a monumental struggle, like trying to plug up a gaping hole in himself or compose a trembling bridge to her with words.

Most of the drafts had nothing to do with the practicalities of arranging a meeting or the common expected lines of a casual ' how are you ', but written for Danny's own private self- expression, not meant or fit to be seen by her or anyone.

Even to think of it now was vaguely distressing and embarasssing.

 _Dear Therese,_ Danny had written with difficulty,his fountain pen leaking and exasperating him in the process . It was very late at night and he should have been sleeping . _I miss you. I miss our conversations. I miss how you challenge me and how you require both thought and truth from me. I adore your intelligence and along with it, your lack of pretention. What a damned fine combination that is. You're very easy to talk to and this is rare,in a time no one speaks to eachother anymore. ... it seems that way more and more. Symptomatic of the age perhaps. Do you miss me? Did our talking together help you? Can I come visit you again? Did you feel as if we shared something? Or was it only from my side? Am I only fooling myself? Even so. Come back. If I was, fine. So be it. Let me fool myself a little longer. Who doesn't fool themselves occasionally._

Danny wrote after a long line.

 _I know I fool myself. I intoxicate myself with the thought of you. I imagine your hand on my hand and my arm, my arm linked with mine, on my shoulder. Walking in blue winter nights with you with your breath visible beside mine. Your limbs. Your legs. Your breasts in daylight. And think: I have no reason to stay here in this godforsaken over-crowded self-absorbed city, unless you're around with me. With you absent, I feel disillusioned with this place around me,the world as it is presented. Or is it that you make me feel alive Therese? Like a poet, connected to this earth, a very fluent and articulate poet._

Awful. With a self-deprecating hiss that was almost a laugh, Danny crumpled the paper . Tossed it aside to the floor.

Another attempt he wrote after after a can of beer and while smoking his pipe:

 _Dear Therese, I may be going to California to do some research or in Maryland to work in a commericial chemical plant. The two places couldn't be more different. What a choice I have. Either way it is a new beginning. It reminded what we spoke of about chemicals and physics and circumstances being like human relationships. These choices made me consider our friendship, in a new light. The chemistry of choice. Or lack of choice, predetermination and the indestructiblity of smoke..._

 _But be honest. Would my leaving to either place affect you, or leave some effect on you? Maybe it doesn't matter, its still going somewhere else. We are all going somewhere whether we know it or not. It is the departure, the going , the movement that is essential. We all get stuck in ruts. Stagnations. Stasis. Everyone's lives eventually diverge. I've lost contact with many people over the years, even forgotten them. College friends, highschool buddies, the people I grew up with. I don't necessarily regret losing touch with them. If we did, we did so for a simple and valid reason. In the same way we had came together and came to know each other. The timing and circumstance was right or we had common interests, or at the time, I got all they could from them, and they from me and there wasn't anything left to be begotten or had , given or taken after that. But I also like to think when you lose something ,its an opportunity for expansion and growth, to gain something else in turn- something you could never anticipate. At a certain point, one takes a bird-eye view on one's existence. Thats the way time is. You change with it or sometimes against it. My work directs me as far as possible. I want to get away from where I am , swim from the tide. Or I have to now. Do you feel the same? You must have ,because you went away. Good for you- if you needed to get away and then did so. It may be too forward to say this, but I am proud of you Terry. If you're happier that way, I am happy for you. Might you like California? Would you if you tried? I'd think it 'd suit you very well. It'd suit me. It'd be a new beginning for both of us, but we'd still be close to the ocean. We could both reinvent ourselves and meet new people ,have new experiences. But it'd good to have a kind and familar face along side me. For you too I bet. And I'm sure there would be many stages for you to paint there too. But I don't want to go anywhere, without seeing you frist._

 _You're a real delight and a good friend. A truly wonderful girl. Terry, I hope you always remember that. As I won't forget it. Just as I won't forget you._

Danny decided then he would be honest. Even if it eviscerated and mortified him, he would lay his cards down.

 _But I'd come from anywhere. Walk through fire, merely to look at you. God. How beautiful you are. You're heavenly . You don't even ascertain it. I'd love so much to touch you and kiss you and hold you in my arms again darling. I did so once, even knowing you were with Richard and I considered him my friend. I didn't consider myself the type to betray a friend,or do that sort of thing. I don't consider Richard my friend anymore. ( I apologize if this sounds clumsy, I've never written a note quite like this and its quite late .) I don't wish to lose you Terry, although we never had eachother like that- except in my mind. As I told you that can feel just as big of a loss too. You're still on my mind and I find myself frequently thinking of you , even when the day has come and finished. Of you and I together. Even if there never was a chance. Even if its just to remain friends. That would content me. I don't wish to lose you too, like other people I've known. Certain people and things are expendable, but others are not, others are essential, as without certain chemicals and reactions one cannot live, cannot function. Please understand. I won't hurt you. I won't let anyone else hurt you ethier._

Danny wrote shakily, in a flurry.

 _I understand what you and Carol have- isn't my business. Nor can it be._ _I understand that. __Trying to pick it apart and analyze it as per scientific formula, as appealing as it might be to someone in the sciences, would be like trying to form a new element from unstable particles, or is like trying to carve up and colonize a land that I had no knowledge of. As the poets say: Everyone's soul is their own and they have to direct it accordingly. Every soul needs and has its privacy, its subterfuges, its doubts and absolutes. I can't deign to understand what you feel towards her- towards Carol I mean, what type of equation you have with her. Only what I feel towards you and what you might feel towards me. I send my love to you Terry. Can you feel it in this letter? No doubt Phill already told you so. My brother jokes I wear my feelings on my sleeve, like a 'chump' he says too clearly and strongly , that I try too hard, and women don't like that. Maybe thats true. You're not like other women or like other people though. You're different and very special to me and everyone you meet. You probably already suspect how I am. But I've hope I' ve illuminated something in our conversations in the past, but I felt all I've done is assisted you towards Carol even though I know she would inevitably hurt you and change you. Is that true? Have I at least helped you. I am here to uplift you. But I won't compare my affection to hers and yours, I can't. But honestly, I don't care what you are and what you've done, but I do care for you. Do you need anything ? Say the word, and I shall come to you. Or why don't you come with me. Lets go together. Hell, we can go where you wish, and I can take it in stride. I If need be, I will let you use me until I'm worn out like a burning match I showed you once. Yes, that match was me. It wouldn't matter. It wouldn't have mattered. Nothing matters._

 _With love always,_

 _Danny_

With a labored groan- he threw out another crumpled up letter. Another astounding failure.

One letter he had written had sounded ridiculous. Flat-out accusatory.

 _Dear Terry,_

 _I write this because I think of you . I wonder if you think of me. Probably you don't- I get the feeling you see and think of nothing now but Carol. I don't know her well, but in a sort of way I can imagine her appeal. I can gleam that Carol is attractive and has a kind of charm, affects sophistication- in a New York socialite in a fur-coat fashion, but she lacks a curiousity. Seems aloof, cold, removed. Self-absorbed. Not steadfast. Is she? Carol seems the kind of person who only knows how to strain and to hurt, and would leave one cold and vacant, like an echo on ice. Slipping through one's fingers like water. Why allow yourself to be captivated and captured, and tortured by such a person. I don't know - but I never understood your relation with Richard either. Once the inital excitement wears off, Richard grows to be plenty wearisome. His ultimate fervor is about himself-and he has more concern for his watches and moccasins , than for other people. Those two don't seem capable of real human feeling, but only of a kind of myopia, and clever mimicry, like those puppets in that Stravinsky ballet you made a model for, thinking their appearance of feeling substantial, not cognizant of what they are , not realizing that they are puppets. (Not like I am or how I feel. ) But you enjoy my company don't you? So why not try me Terry? Couldn't I offer you something authentic? Unstaged? We could be happy with one another I think. What do you have to lose? My God. How bad could I be, compared to them?_

Danny crumpled that letter up angrily, as if he were accusing himself.

Another attempt.

 _Dear Therese,_

 _You're an angel._

He ripped that up immediately too.

Danny's final letter , silly, short and skeletal as it was, was the one he sent:

 _Dear Therese,_  
" _There's a possiblity that I may go out to the Coast at the end of the month to take a job in California. I must decide between this ( a lab job) and a offer of a commercial chemical plant in Maryland. If I could see you in Colarado or anywhere else for a while, I would leave a little early. Shall probably take the California job as I think there it has better prospects. So would you let me know where you'd be? It doesn't matter. There are lots of ways getting to California. If your friend wouldn't mind, it would be nice to spend a few days with you somewhere.I'll be in New York until the 28th of Feburary anyway._

 _Love,_  
 _Danny_

Danny had tried to make it friendly. More impersonal. Mercifully short. Factual. Non-threatening and non-committal.

His eagerness had probably come through anyways.

If only words were like equations Danny thought exasperatedly. Words were already symbols, a codex meant for a particular interpreter. Symbols that expressed meanings and were the catalyst for inner and outer changes.

When he was a child, liking to read boy adventure stories, Danny had almost wanted to write stories himself- until he realized it was too ambigious, imprecise and lying of an art for him, and in the uncertainties of the time, he found himself drawn to the structure, to the objectivity and clarity of the maths and sciences instead.

Writing these letters to Therese, made Danny even more grateful that he directed himself towards physics and not literature.

A poet he wasn't.

He couldn't even manage to write a decent letter.

If only... Danny wished he could find and pair and use the right words together, like an equation that might create or at least express a certain feeling of reality, to make his comprehensible, to produce the right balance between purposefulness and persuasiveness and sentiment. A proper and living efffect.

Even in that letter he sent, his diction had disappointed and frustrated him. Danny's words had both gave him up and let him down, confessed too much and conveyed too little. ( Did he sound fumbling, unintelligent in it ? Signing the leter as 'love Danny' had been a conflicted decision too. Was' love' too forward and cloying or presumptuous? But 'best' was too reserved, too formal and dishonest. Should he added that part about wlling to leave early just to see her? Or did it imply that Danny was going to take the California job just so he could have an unavoidable excuse to visit her on his way- that ofcourse wasn't the case. Did that seem too desperate? Might that frighten Therese off? And Danny had after much deliberation decided to called Carol, Therese's ' friend', but he had no illusions about what the two women were. They certainly weren't friends. But he didn't wish to sound lewd, arrogant or snide. One had economical, and cautious with one's choice of words. )

Whereas Richard had almost taken an perverse pleasure in his disgust and righteous indignation,carelessly condemning Therese with thoughtless, condescending and easily cast off phrases, all the while being ungodly luridly fascinated with it: Pathology. Disgusting. Sordid. Infantile. Dysfunction. Whimsy. Nyphomania. Lesbianism. Crazy. Whore. Degeneration. The modern day eqivalent of Hellfire. Sodom and Gomorrah, and the pillar of salt.

Well. Danny thought darkly. What did Richard know.

Richard could go to hell.

As if reading his mind, Therese asked him . "Did Richard talk to you."

She said this as if she were indifferent about this subject, although they both knew Therese wasn't.

This was a kind of test of Danny, and of their friendship.

But everything was a test or was a kind of testing.

"No. I think he wanted to one night, but I cut it off before it got started." Danny reported matteroffactly.

This was true. Danny didn't want to listen to Richard bad-mouth or pick apart Terese, so Danny had avoided Richard for that reason, going into his room whenever he sought him out, or pretending to be asleep or otherwise preoccupied.

Once Richard had called Danny ostensibly to get Therese's address to send her a letter- an angry letter , a last ditch attempt meant to wound Therese no doubt, but in actuality he had called Danny to lament, complain, feeling it was his right to do so, and take up his time.

In response, Danny had told him the address, tersely said that he was busy and had to study and promptly hung up.

Richard never called back.

Good Danny thought. They had nothing to say to eachother anymore.

Perhaps that tension between them had prompted Danny to leave for this job so quickly.

Had he stayed in such close proximity to Richard, what may have happened?

Danny did not like to think about that.

Just as he, as a student and a scientist, did not like to imagine 'Hell'- it being a variable outside human understanding . Even so the concept of Hell to be fathomed as a lake of fire and of wirthing sinner's bodies seemed absurd, childish and medieval, just as absurd as a Heaven with harp carrying cherubs and pillowy pallid clouds .

To Danny, a Hell as a void of darkness, deprivation and nothingness appeared far much more modern , feasible and sinister. But where was the actual threat, the point of fathoming it at all ? Wasn't Hell just a mere metaphor, a literary explanation for mundane earthly illness, for depression, and the reality of human cruelty?

Or an existentialist would say a state of human hopelessness (along with the other cliched sayings about hope springing eternal and the sign on entrance to Hell on in the Divine Comedy in Dante's poetic yet bureaucratic ordering of the Hell 'abandon all hope all ye who enter here',) as Danny once read a disconcerting translated French play called 'No Exit' recommended to him by Phillip about three strangers, helplessly caught in a hotel room for all eternity and discovering themselves an unpleasant dynamic- each one of them (of course) was attracted to the one person in the room who was incapable of reciprocating their attraction. Then the three people realizing that they have died, and this was their afterlife, their damnation.

Danny hadn't liked that play.

Phillip had snidely told him that was because he hadn't 'gotten what it meant.'

Perhaps not. Concerning himself with 'truth' ,Danny never had been a theater aficionado -the stage being a short sort of one sided social meeting,a simulated semblance and replicable human situation -like a doll was a insensitive facsimile of a person, just as Danny did not entertain that concept of the afterlife meaningfully either. He did not consider himself a mystic.

Although at periods in his life, Danny, without expecting it or knowing from where it came from, had felt something that could be described as wholly irrational. Spiritual even.

Likewise, Danny never considered himself hostile, aggressive or a pugilist. He liked production, action and activity, but he did not like violence- finding it aimless and irrational and repulsive, he wasn't particularly drawn towards it. But even in school days, for his height and large build Danny was often recruited or solicited by coaches and other classmates for contact athetics- football or wrestling, other sports like it. But Danny had never taken them up on it, preferring more solitary physical past times -like horseback riding, or working in labs or reading his books instead.

What disturbed Danny each time people approached him, was the implication of their offer: that coaches and classmates percieved that capacity for violence in him, or they wanted to see it from him. As if his body was built for it, or should be utilized for it, regardless of his own intents and wishes, that Danny might be or should become just one of violence's many insensate vectors, like a pistol or a spear, or areoplane was .(And that was even if it were in a controlled and socially approved of environment such as sports.) Or even now, when he told people he was studying physics, he thought of people mostly assuming , or even asking him almost eagerly it he was going to or intended to help build atomic bombs. That felt like a kind of condemnation. A degeneration agianst his own grain and a degradation of his natural function.

Although Danny grimly accepted violence as a reality or as an potenial, knew of its necessity in life. Certain chemicals clashed, had violent and destructive reactions, just as some people, for whatever reason, reacted violently, cataclysmically, hellishly to one another. And one day something brutal might happen to him, or he might have to do something dreadful in order to continue or even end himself if life got too atrocious , he accepted that.

However, Danny had felt that hearing Richard say something bad about Therese, might compell him to strike Richard. Fight him. Hit him.

Why? To defend Therese?

Or for some other reason? Just to shut him up? Shut him off?

Danny had wanted to in the past- not to physically throttle Richard, but just to quiet him, change him, or simply have him not be there - in some subtle imaginings.

As Danny recalled: Richard had never valued Therese, and had often talked down to and about Therese. It had bothered Danny, angered him, how Richard treated her. Calling her ' little girl', saying she looked' swell' in a condescending fashion, slyly bragging about taking her virginity, or he put it 'popping her cherry.' (What an expression.) Richard spoke of Therese's virginity as he had forever accquired the root of Therese's intimate knowledge, and would always have an undeniable hold and claim to Therese on that basis alone. Just as Richard bragged about his plans about going to Europe with Therese, to make his friends and strangers jealous- as if that promise of a bohemian grand tour ( it made Phill very jealous as he was obessed with going to France, and with French theater )and being the object of envy might make Therese more inclined to sleep with him more often and would bind her permanently to him, just like the seizure of virginity had supposedly done. In the same way Richard was so assured when he walked into a room that everyone in that room would like him, because he was good looking and he acted as if he 'knew things'.

Danny recalled one of their frist meetings with Therese. He had been with Richard and Phillip, yet he had been the only one to try to initiate and engage in polite conversation with her about one of her model set. She had told him it was meant to be fair scene about a ballet called _Petrushka_. Later on. Danny made a point to research it and found out it was a bizarre ballet burlesque composed by Stravinsky written after _The Fire Bird_ but before _The Rite of Spring_. _Petrushka_ was about a love triangle between three unfortunate caricature like puppets. At the end, Petruska- a long suffering ugly puppet tortured by unrequited love is murdered by another doll, his battered corpse he is taken back to the theater by his dastardly puppeter the Charlatan. As the final act, Petruska's vengeful ghost rises up to menance the puppeter, to prove to him and the audience that he is not a mere puppet, that he is infact 'alive' . The fair scene Therese had painstaking recreated out of cardboard was of The Shrovetide Fair meant to take place in Admirality Square in St. Petersburg.

Danny had shut the book, and felt slighly razed and disturbed after learning about that fact.

And to think; Danny had mostly started speaking to Therese , more because he was bored, impatient about the two of them - Richard, and his brother Phill, how they behaved when they were like together- like two children playing truant in a tree house or a rowboat filled with sand, eager to show off to another, insufferable, inconsequential and obnoxious, and they didn't even like eachother much. Richard and Phill had walked ahead, chatting, leaving Therese about 10 paces behind behind- Richard not even checking if he had might have lost his girlfriend and if she were following. Like he were Orpheus and she were Eurydice! Richard and Phillip had even the audacity to speak crassly about Richard's former girlfriends right before her, as if she weren't there. Danny- mildly apalled and embarassed at the two of them, had stayed behind to walk with her, make sure she was alright. He had taken Therese's arm, at the curb or though slush puddles and asked if she were cold, even though knowing it was not his place to do so- given that he was not her beau, but Richard damn well wasn't doing it. Perhaps that had prompted Danny to invite her over to their place for lunch, in compensation for how poorly Richard treated her that afternoon. Even so, Richard would take efforts to present himself and Therese as if they were a ideal couple in front of his family or others he wanted to impress or would ignore her for the same reason- just as he had with the other girls before her. But that was Richard. With a new conception of himself, came a new accessory, a girl or ' mistress', Richard called them, like he were an true artist. It was enough to make Danny laugh. Just as Richard constant getting and losing jobs, his presenting girlfriends like his affected showy smoking, his Benzadrine popping, his mediocre paintings- admittedly several Richard had completed during his two year stint in the Navy were decent , (whereas Therese actually had ability for it), and other aimless ambitions and pseudo-disciplines, fooling around until he would be sent Long Island to work and open a branch for his father's bottled-gas company _The Semco Bottled Gas Company_ . Like Richard. Like gas escaping out of a bottle. More hot air, swill. Small talk.

Not only that, after his actions, Richard complained of Therese's deficits throughout his time with her and afterwards, but would say, "But I want her, thats the hell of it!"

Thats the hell of it Danny thought.

Thats the hell of it.

It was a form of madness, Danny prefigured, with a grim partial smile. Foolhardiness. Wanting to hurt his friend, when nearly everyone would agree Richard was justified in his feelings of outrage towards his troubled dreamy girlfriend who had so scandalously and without precedent abandoned and betrayed him. And then to feel so wistfully inclined for this same said girl who briefly ran away with some seductive and cool married woman, and who had behaved as eccentrically, recklessly as Therese had done recently. And had Danny told others of his thoughts , they would judge him poorly, and unfit, as questionable, or as a lunatic. Much like Richard had deemed Therese.

But who wasn't mad nowadays? That was almost a quote- from another book or a song that Danny could no longer remember where and from and wherefore it was towards.

But ofcourse, Richard had to be mentioned , Richard had been how Danny met Therese in the frist place: Richard had been Phil's friend and then Danny's friend, although in hindsight, Danny wondered if he ever liked Richard . It seemed strange to be friends with someone you didn't like, but it happened more often than not like, for work reasons or for the purposes of mutual use . Or Danny's like for Richard had paled in comparision in what he felt for Therese. Possibly, Danny had always liked Therese more , but to in order to have access to her company, he had to maintain a friendship with Richard. Or Danny had better liked Richard in the context of him being with Therese, as if his association with someone he liked so much, somewhat redeemed him.

Otherwise, Danny found in many ways Richard to be a posturer, a dilentante. Irritating. He knew Richard spoke poorly about his brother behind his back- as he did Therese, and he was sure he spoke behind Danny's too. He was the kind of person who sought after others not to listen or learn, but to talk about you later unbeknownst to you or talk at you, to hear himself, and he wasn't that interesting.

How Richard had reacted , sullenly, pathetically and petulantly to Therese's flight made Danny like Richard even less. Theoretically he should have felt sympathy for his friend, and identified with Richard, being he had been Richard's friend frist , and he was a man of a similar age and station and he could possibly find himself in a similar position some day. But he didn't.

Richard and he were very different people. Danny thought; if people were like books, Richard was like a book with a appealing cover but poorly written and missing its most essenial pages.

And in these kinds of separations, the ending of relationships, loyalties were always divided and drawn. One had to make a choice, pick a side. Danny had chosen his, or it had been chosen for him. Danny was Therese's friend, more than Richards and had always been, and in fully shedding a friend, he had gained a new one.

At least with his and Therese's friendship firmly established, Danny could bypass Richard, 'cut out the middle man', and address Therese directly. He could, even in a different state, all the way out in the mid-west, on the cusp of them becoming different people, he could seek her out privately like this because Therese solely wanted to see him. Not anyone else back in New York. Just him. Because Therese liked Danny for who he was, and did not have to like him, as if she might have before ,just because he was Richard's friend, or because she needed him for some pragmatic reason.

That felt like an achievement.

Therese smiled bitterly between her cigarette. With a abbreviated drag, she put out its dying stub. "Then I hope Richard finds someone to listen to him. He needs an audience."

"But I wasn't willing to be it. He feels jilted." Danny said with that same note of tart humor. "His ego's suffering."

It was true. Richard had not been seriously damaged. He merely had been humbled.

"Ofcourse it is." Therese looked aside, her smile almost gone. "Something tells me it always will be."

That was so true Danny nearly chuckled. Almost.

When Therese gazed at him questioningly, Danny had said, like making a declaration. "Don't think I'm like Richard. I'm not."

He wasn't.

Or least , he hoped to God he wasn't.

"As in?" She prompted him.

"As in. My ego's not suffering. ' Danny shrugged effortlessly. Ignoring the jilted aspect. "But look at me. What ego can a man like me have?"

She laughed at that. Laughed at him.

Danny smiled back.

But maybe his ego was suffering.

Or something else (more profound) was suffering.

"You needn't tell me that. I know you aren't Danny." Therese said after a long pause. "You aren't like Richard in the least."

"I wonder then . " Danny said, bemused, nicotine stained fingers around his dripping Old Fashioned. He rarely ordered a drink so elaborate or so sweet. "Who am I like?"

 _Am I like her._ He wondered. _Or am I like someone else you know?_

Therese thought about it again.

"You." She smiled at him mysteriously over the rim of her glass. She said this, like she had meant to say to him many times before. "You're like an angel Danny. Flung out of space."

Danny's smile became geniuine.

He was not sure what that meant exacrtly.

Nevertheless he was hopeful.

Today, at this present moment, Danny and Therese walked on, her arm linked with his, like the unbreakable loops of a chain, a molecular bond.

"I shouldn't take up more of your time Danny." Therese said with a philosophical air. "You don't have much left."

"Why not take it. We have nothing but time Terry. " Danny said trying to suppress the longing in his voice, his fingers delving into his coat pocket to finger inside it as if he could tuck and stow added time into it. "We have all the time in the world."

 _If only._ Danny thought _. Stay with me with what little time I have left._

This felt not true for this afternoon, but for the remainder of all time.

" Even if that were true." Therese's arm fell away from his. "You shouldn't let me take it up."

"No, I shouldn't." Danny agreed.

It was a joke however.

They stared at one another.

"However, we do both need to eat- since we skipped lunch. I've got until nine until I have to go." Danny said to her briskly, trying to convince her to remain in his presence. " Stay on. Have dinner with me Terry. Would you mind that?"

"Dinner?" Therese pursed her lips charmingly again. " Don't you need to pack?"

"Yes I do. And I will. " Danny cursed himself for telling her that. "How about a evening drink then."

"No." She said after a moment's consideration.

" No what? " He asked .

" No. " Therese said, after a brief second of suspense. "I wouldn't mind a drink with you."

Danny had smiled at that too.

That evening they were to meet at his hotel this time, in the hotel bar that was side to the lobby. The bar had a Scottish theme, was called McGregor's, and in that spirit, Danny ordered spirits, a single malt neat, that tasted too peaty for his liking. Danny had sipped at it, not expecting to get buzzed or tipsy. To off set the peat taste he helped himself to a handful of stale salted peanuts.

There was nothing quite like the cloven feeling, he thought, of the pleasant anticipation and unpleasant anxiety of waiting for someone.

A very old song was playing on a nearby jukebox. A romantic tune, which was a disconnect from his surroundings. Danny could remember hearing the song somewhere, but he could not remember where and at what occasion . It was sung by a crooning young man who missed 'his buddy', the voice was coy and simpering and earnest, like the sung lyrics. " _Nights are long, since you went away, I think about you all through the day. My buddy, nobody quite so true. Your buddy misses you... Miss your voice... the touch of your hand..._ "

Danny mused: The song was clearly not about an buddy in the typical sense.

A younger man might know the words, could whistle it, and would proud he knew all the tune and lyrics.

Danny didn't.

And he didn't feel young either.

With nothing else to do, he considered the irony of being in an Scottish bar; as Danny had an Irish surname. The McElroys even had a coat of arms, a family crest, though Danny had forgotten what it looked like in any vivid detail. All he could remember was that it was deep blue with gold accents.

The young man took in and eyed his surroundings.

The bar was dark blue, and it was near empty , amongst the golden lights shimmering through it. Dark blue and empty like his condensation gathering on his glass, like the night and his head. He stared into his cup, like his eye might be broken glass and thought: _This glass was a miniature of this bar, and this bar is a microcosm of my head. Which is a microcosm of the entire world._

Danny took a sip of the world and it burned, and wondered if Therese would ever show.

Or if he would be left here, like waiting for Godot. (Another play Phill liked ) Waiting for all time.

"Danny." Like a vision, he heard Therese's voice just then.

Danny looked up .

Uncontrollably, the young man's eyes lit and he smiled.

Danny had been delighted to see her, be in her presence ealirer.

And Therese looked better, more radiant than yesterday or even during this afternoon, if only for making him wait that much longer.

"You look wonderful." Danny commented on it as she sat besides him. He could not help himself and added with an eager tremor of honesty in his voice that shocked him. "I'm ...so glad you're here Terry."

The young woman said back to him. "I'm awfully glad to be here too."

And Danny, grinned at Therese, feeling strangely giddy and enlivened, rejuvenated. He suddenly wished there were more people in this bar to see them together . Either that or perhaps that there was no one else in existence, except for Therese and him. He wasn't sure why this was. It was a luxuriant and romantic thought to entertain, but Danny was glad to have it. Danny even wanted to take the back of her hand and kiss it in a sort of gratitude, for the two of them being alive and well and for them arriving and for being in the same place together and being glad to see eachother.

Danny also wondered if he were handsome enough for Therese with her new found maturity, her freshly lipsticked mouth, her differently undulating hair, how she spoke and how she smoked and dressed.

Before in New York Therese had worn little to no makeup, that made her look more willowy, wan and girlish, but still pretty. Now wore her looks more confidently, more intentionally, with an new authority, awareness and knowingness. It was very attractive, and Therese emanated with that attractiveness, with vitality from being droll and amusing and allowing herself to be amused by others and everything, with a charismatic light all her own. She seemed a new person, or had revealed who she really was or could be , like emerging out of a cocoon, and Danny wanted to see her, come to know and meet that new person. To see if these changes would continue, would remain consistent or if would she transform into someone else and how.

Where had all these changes come from?

From Carol?

Had Carol taught her to be like this? Was Carol responsible for these striking differences?

Danny would not ask about her about Carol. Not when there were other questions he could ask her about instead. He said. "May I take your coat." For example.

She said. "Yes you can."

Like a gentleman, Danny helped Therese out of her coat, from where she sat. She was in a fitted deep blue dress that looked good on her. Showed off her figure. She didn't wear such clothes before.

Danny had worn black, to match his hair. Along with his sweater and his suit jacket. (He often did not wear his coat, liking the cold. It cleared his head and allowed him to think sharper.)

Seeing Therese's dress, reminded him how he needed to buy new clothes for his work but work- usually at the forefront of his thought and action, was currently a trivial concern, the farthest one from his mind.

"Would you like a drink?" Danny asked. "A soda, or tea. Coffee, A cocktail?"

He noticed that he had drank alot recently, more than he usually had. He had drank during his lunch with her the other day, and he did not normally drink at lunch and he had drank now. Both times, he had done so to relax himself and build up his courage, to keep his excitement and an latent anxiety from showing.

"Yes. " Therese brushed some of her dark hair out of her face. "I would thank you."

How she did it was lovely. Danny wanted to brush that hair out of her face.

"But not here. " Therese added.

"Oh. " Danny said.

The young man leaned in and his voice lowered, like one might in an exchange of secrets."Where then."

Therese asked him in a similar conspiratorial tone . "Have you checked out of your room?"

He said slowly, with surprise. "...No I haven't."

She murmured, with a smile near wavering on her lips. "Do you have any drinks there Danny?"

"Some. Beer mostly. " Danny 's brow flexed. He bought some beers and cigarettes at a corner store earlier. "We... could have a drink there... If you would like to come up with me."

"I'd prefer that." She said.

"Sure Therese." Danny agreed.

He paid the bill, then took her by the arm and helped her out of the booth and took her coat for her, over his arm.

They took the elevator up in silence.

Although they eyed eachother and smiled once at each other , quickly.

They walked down the hall until they arrived at his room.

Therese looked at him expectantly.

Danny nodded as if in affirmation and tried not to fumble with the keys.

Just then he remembered as the door unlocked ,to his embarassment, that he still wasn't completely packed. There were still miscellaneous things of his scattered, strewn around them like an anthropological study of himself.

With only mild dread, he opened the door. He saw : At least the maid had come in and made the bed and cleaned the room to some degree. It wasn't a complete mess. While still embarassing, it was still in the bound of acceptablity or by knowing him and his tendency to procrastinate, Therese would at least be understanding about it.

"Do make yourself at home Terry. Sit where you'd like. " Danny told her, and held the door open for her.

Therese came in and said courteously. "This is a very nice room."

"Its fine." Hanging her coat up on the hook, Danny went into the kitchentte. "Do sit down. I'll get you your drink."

He went to get her beer for her. Imagining Therese sitting there on the sofa, waiting patiently for him.

It was a pleasant image.

Danny hastily got a bottle of beer for himself from the ice box. Therese's beer, he decided he would put in a glass. It seemed like a immediate way to distinguish them, she was his guest and it was a more genteel and thoughtful gesture .

As he poured her beer into a glass, he could imagine her with him, doing this for her in Oakland. Amongst his books and half-drunk cups of coffee and drinking chocolate ( Danny secretly liked drinking chocolate but was abashed by that secret fondness. It comforted him, reminded him of winters and of his mother making it for him and his brother during the holidays )her latest set models surrounding them. Coming home from work. Waiting for her there in the evenings, on his sofa. Having quiet night time conversations with cigarettes and cool beer and old standards playing on their record machine.

When he came back, Therese was not sitting on the sofa.

Instead, she was standing in the center of his room.

Therese looked apprehensive. Undecided.

"Terry." Danny came towards her, concerned. He suppressed an rising endearment. "Is ...there something the matter?"

Danny wondered if Therese had changed her mind, was planning to leave early.

It made sense. She had appeared reluctant to spend more time with him in the frist place. He wasn't sure why this was .

Therese said nothing

Instead the young woman walked forward and took the glass from his hand, and put it on the table next to them.

Aterwards she placed her delicate hand was in his.

"...Ms. Belivet.' Danny said gravely. Formally using her correct name. "...Don't ...you want your drink with me?"

 _Your farewell drink._ He thought sadly. _Our farewell drink_.

She said as if it meant something else. "Yes. I do ."

The girl peered up at him, as if trying to look for something in him.

Danny looked down at her. Hoping she would find it.

Her eyes half-lidded, Therese leaned in very gradually, towards him, like the movements of a dream.

And like a continuation of that dream, Therese chastely kissed his lips.

Danny held his breath ,closed his eyes.

He did nothing for a moment, beer gripped in one hand. Therese's hand in his other. Holding the beer and her hand like an anchor, so he wouldn't be flung out in space.

It was even better than he might have hoped.

But this was the second time they kissed, he remembered.

The frist time, it had been his room in New York.

This time Danny had not initiated it.

That had been another pleasant change.

Therese drew back.

Silently,Danny put his bottle down and gave her a questioning look.

Therese only smiled.

They had shaken hands after that first kiss in New York, like mannerly friends afterward.

This time, Danny kissed Therese.

He waited for Therese to pull away.

When she didn't, Danny slid and placed his hands on her waist and pulled her in closer , to secure her there.

Therese in turn placed her hands on his shoulders.

For a moment Danny thought nothing.

They could live like this Danny thought, surprised by his own thoughts when they came back to him. He imagined he and Therese doing so together. There were a empty space in his life, in her precise silhouette, where she could reside. Their lips pressed together .His girl. His friend.

Finally, slowly, with a subtle sound, their lips separated.

Danny stood, hands still on her waist, forehead leaning on hers . Eyes closed, his breath warming and ghosting over her lips.

He wanted to kiss her again.

Instead, Therese gently brushed off his arms, and stepped back, away from him.

She took her glass as if nothing had happened, and sipped it.

Despite himself, Danny smiled.

"What would you like to do now Terry?" Danny then asked, he himself acting as if nothing has happened.

Would Therese want to talk some more? And about what? His potenial job? His plans and the research he might do? More metaphysics,or physics and poetry? Politics? (Danny hated politics and the pettiness it revealed in people, but he would discuss it Therese) He could accommodate her about any subject, or would try to. Might she want to turn on the radio and dance? - Danny hoped not, he was not a good dancer. Having two left feet , feeling rather tall and ungainly on the floor, he had never enjoyed dancing very much- he badly needed a teacher. He would rather not do that, but if he must, he'd dance with her. Danny thought of Benzene's ring, how August Kekule has dreamt of a ring of atoms dancing like persons together, a dream that supposedly lead him to realize the link and the molecular structure of Benzene and it bonds of carbon looking like a ring ,or snake swallowing its own tail , an anecdote that pleased the scientists and psychoanalyst both. Or did Therese want to get idiotically drunk with him. Danny could do that too.

Finally Danny allowed his thoughts wander to the suspenseful and somewhat forbidden conclusion...

Did Therese want to go to bed with him?

Or was she still deciding whether she did or not?

Was that why she was in his hotel room right now?

Danny felt their exchanges was charged, tingled with something. Some potency. Some suspense. Some salt.

Was it the potential of sex?

Was Therese attracted to him? Was she deciding if she was or not?

Danny took his bottle, and drew a long sip of beer.

He was unequivocally attracted to her. It was not a decision. Danny simply was.

But he could have no expectations.

Was it possible that Therese only considering going to bed with Danny because he was leaving for California and she back to New York? So the act would seem spur of the moment, and because their disparate directions would cleanly sever them- like a amputation, there would be no consequences. No expectations afterward. Therefore she could easily move on, forget that it ever happened? Forget him?

Danny reasoned: They were friends. That was agreed upon. It didn't matter. Whether they went to bed or not, they would always be friends.

Whether that was true or not, that thought comforted Danny. Made him feel less lonely , and uncertain about whatever may lay ahead.

"Why don't we sit down." Therese instead said, hazel eyes leveling wiith the sofa.

"Alright. " Danny took note of Therese's initative, and was grateful for her new-found capacity to take direction. "Would you like a cigarette."

She said mysteriously. "You read my mind Danny."

If only he could.

Danny with his beer in hand, sat down on the sofa, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his pants pocket.

Seeing that, Therese with her glass , went to join him.

Instead of sitting beside him, Therese sat down on Danny 's lap, without question or hesitation. Like he were her chair. As if she had done it dozen of times before.

Danny grinned helplessly at her in surprise .

Therese smiled back. "I'd like my cigarette now Mr. McElroy."

"Well alright Terry." Danny remarked with a lift of his thick eyebrows. "Whatever you say. "

They both laughed softly.

He pulled out one cigarette. He lit hers frist by lighting it in his mouth. Then he gave it to her. Instead of his usual pipe, he lit a cigarette for himself.

Then he took a sip of beer. He smoked with her, as she did the same.

They sat in impeccable and peaceable silence.

Danny thought:Smoking and drinking. With beautiful Therese Belivet on his lap in a hotel room far from home and everyone he knew.

 _Isn't life grand._

All this culiminated in a sense of profound contentment. Happiness spreading and shimmering in him like a sparkler, or a glow of sunlight. _I am happy_. Danny thought. It was a happiness so intense, he could not even speak or think or smile properly. He felt numb as if he were levitating. The cigarette dangling in his mouth and burning between his lips.

Why did people speak of heaven he wondered?

This was enough.

"I'm leaving soon... Are you alright with that?" Danny finally uttered as if someone else said it.

"Yes. I'm completely fine ." Therese's hand moved to stroke his neck, making Danny's eyes near close, and lean back into the sofa.

He found he was completely fine too.

At the moment. He needed nothing. Danny thought, now the inevitable should happen. He could die of an heart attack and a brain aneurism right now, Therese could let her cigarette embers fall upon him , a atomic bomb plunge from the sky and kill them all, he would be absolutely contented.

He pulled Therese in closer, putting his thick arm around her narrow frame and slim shoulders.

"It honestly doesn't bother you... as a man, like it did Richard?" Therese asked him heistantly.

"What would bother me." Danny said, eyes closed.

Nothing could bother him now.

"The fact I was ...once with a woman I mean. " Therese whispered, cradled in his lap.

No. Danny thought. If it had or ever did , it did not matter now. She was with him.

"... I'm a man but as I said, I'm not like Richard." Danny reassured her in a slow leisurely murmur. He stroked the back of her head with a large hand. "I believe people's lives are their own."

That was true.

It was also true that Danny did not want to hear about Richard or anyone else right now.

Then he stated factually, unthinkingly, like an afterthought as he took another inhale of his cigarette. "And I admit, there were times in the past when I questioned my own sexuality Terry. "

Staring into her eyes, he felt Therese stir in his lap, and her eyes widen at him with same amazement as earlier, when he could address the topic of Carol plainly, without any kind of judgement.

Danny was slightly surprised at his own forwardness again. He exhaled smoke through his nostrils. Why this notion had been brought up now of all times? Danny had never mentioned it to anyone. He had not thought about that in a long while.

Or did it mean, Danny had no defences anymore. He felt as if he could talk to Therese about anything. Even this matter.

Yes. Danny had thought and questioned himself about that subject. He remembered reading something about it in some youth magazine more than ten years ago. It had been a anxious letter from a young man reader to the weekly advice column that he had felt growing 'odd romantic feelings, like one might have for a girl' for his best friend.

In response, the advise given was that it was a common adolescent phase that some people went through in their formative years, but it would soon pass.

That thought had nagged at Danny (but he hadn't been disaproving, only mystified how that might happen) when he had read it but he had only been 13 himself then. Would he go through that phase also? He wondered if it were possible that he might 'fall in love; with his best friend, or some other boy- men were like that were called sissies, fairies and other things. And Danny had not fallen in love with a girl yet. What might that be like, feel like? When would it happen? Would it ever? Both prospects intensely worried and frightened him. Like Schrodinger cat. Until it happened , the still concealed phenomena uncover itself, Danny might be simultaneously both or neither, the two realities and superpositions of himself collapsing into one another.

Around that time, Danny remembered 'noticing' his frist girl . He could barely remember her name now. Ellen he thought or Elaine Hartman who he had seen at a school dance. He didn't know her. An older girl, who was 15 or so, and he had noticed her with a sort of inner tulmult and shock, an oddness in his stomach like a kind of clumsy ache afflictiing him like a hunger that couldn't be quite satisfied. She was a slim attractive girl with features that reminded him of a fox , with brandy auburn hair to her shoulders, more beautiful in certain lights than others. Then thinking about the prettiness of the girl , the appeal of her musical voice. The desire to look at her or be close to her subtly gnawed at him. Wanting them to be close and able to touch one another.

One night in his bed, by moonlight, he remembered imagining this girl embracing, and holding him. Feeling her breasts, her breath, the softness and smoothness, dewy suet texture of her skin. He had become aroused. Danny had remember awkwardly and experimentally, exploring and playing with himself, his growing hardness, the more confused he grew, the harder he became, the more harder, the more confused, embarassed and ashamed he was. The urgency, the desire , its need for fiction growing for him, like a burning matchstick. Danny could feel everything- it was uncomfortable, sensuous and ennervating. Everything on his body and surrounding it. As if were sensate flesh, quivering with sensitivity and fire. Red-faced, felt like he might burst and shout or was falling. It was a painful shedding, of his childhood and his boyhood, as if he were razed in sudden nakedness. A struggling lamb being held down and sheared almost against this will, feeling the sharp sensation of air on new shorn skin.

In response he tried to feel something else. A exercise in thought, a hypothetical inquiry. He imagined his then best friend's face, a boy named Paul Phelps, who played ball with him. Instead of ball, embracing him instead. It felt foreign. Forced. Dissonant. It could be because Paul was his friend and he did not think about a close friend that way . Danny tried another boy he liked as a classmate and acquaintance , Douglas Patterson whom was considered to be sportive, better looking. That he might want to undress before them, or put his hands on them and kiss them , or have their hands stroke and touch his thighs, like he had seen men and women do in films or do in passing. These thoughts mocked him. Sissy, sinful, perverse and other words. He attempted to ignore that. Those beliefs were variables, societal biases that could affect or taint the results, occlude the evidence. Still. His insides pursing and roiling like a melting slug under salt, a cramping muscle, with queasiness and unease. Might his friendship with these boys evolve into something else, like the fish that grew legs, rising and crawling to land from the shadowy sea? Kissing his friend. Kissing a boy. Falling in love with him. This felt different. It was not pleasant or reacting well with him in the slightest and it showed in his body . Danny felt desperately upset, and confused, like he might weep.

Danny imagined the girl- Elaine or Ellen comforting him, assuring him it was fine. Not to be afraid. She was here. The image of the other boy disapeared, as he had focused upon her and allowed himself to fantasize about her comforting him and coming closer to her. Confessing himself and telling her that he had noticed her, how much it affected him. Then making love to this girl, or what he imagined it was like, seeing and touching her soft breasts, her reassuring sweet kisses, her lovely voice , her tantilizing smell, and kind and entrancing eyes, lying besides her then the weight of his body pressing onto hers, as if he were growing into her flesh, her hands invitingly upon his back as he gently slipped his erection inside her. Such an action which he had heard about, the act 'had seemed so ugly, pointless, comical, foolishly ludricious before. Now-foolish or no- it seemed thrilling, heart stopping, something he painfully helplessly ernestly desired. Was this sex, love? He imagined he and the girl holding eachother tightly. Making love slowly. Then increasing his pace and pressure, until he was racing along effortlessly with such a current, losing himself yet in complete harmony with her and the bed and the room and the moonlight- later, it had been like that epiphany he had told Therese about, riding that horse that time in Pennsylvania as he visited relatives earlier that year,as the horse suddenly near bucked and jolted and ran like blazes, deciding to race forward up a hill by itself and take him along with him, and Danny knew or decided he wasn't fearful anymore, he would not try and hoard and protect himself from this sensation and feeling, now a rider conceding to his powerlessness, he was finally happy, letting go of everything as what else could he do, he was in harmony with the horse and being carried in its path like light leaves spiralling in the wind, the wind in his hair, like the strumming strings of an orchestra, in the constant procession with the land, like he could be the millions of people and animals and living things at once all at once, like they were all one part of tree being blown collectively in the breeze, hastened forth by the right economy of life, his body and the horse being used and using up in this living and changing landscape, and he grasped that he in wild frightened joy that he might be destroyed someday as everything would be , but it would happen later and through his surrending to this grandeur of going up this hill, to this profusion of being, power and motion, he was ascertaining something beyond self and knowledge and the past and future and all words, and with a stifled abandoned cry, he had climaxed for frist time, spectacularly,and hard, spilling all over the place and himself.

Right now, with her sitting in her lap and his fingers loosely tangled in her hair, Danny wanted to tell Therese about that moment.

He didn't know why.

Currently, Danny knew that everyone participated in both sexes to some degree and was receptive to their charms and to a sense of attraction, even friendship was a kind of attraction or affinity, some physic force that allowed some people to be compatible with eachother, and others not. For whatever cause, something immediately 'clicked' between certain people and it was explicable and relevant only to themselves. Whether it be men and women, men with other men, and women with other women. Or sometimes it never did. Strangely, Danny now remembered watching once two acrobatic women perform a routine as partners on television-how they looked at eachother with their eyes linked as they fell into eachother arms, and impossibly and exquisitely contorted their bodies around eachother, and how they swung their arms, in swan-like motions over their heads, as if the two women might be lovers, like love making were a kind of cooperative contortionist act- concluding either in surpassing ones bounds unto sublime beauty or in painful danger, requiring both participant's utmost skill and trust.

As for himself, Danny could acknowledge other men were attractive or charismatic with an aesethetic scientific appreciation, sometimes begrudingly, like Richard. Richard was 'good-looking' and girls often noticed him , as he was lanky and limber, blonde, slack limbed, with his an uneven mouth, blank blue eyes, and girlish hands , and the interesting constrast to his more sensitive looks was how he elbowed his way thoughtlessly through the world . (As opposed to Danny's taller bigger stature , his darker , broader and stronger countenaunce, very unlike his brothers Philip's 'El-Greco thinness' and his elongated and more supersilious features , like he had seen in textbook photo of a mosiac Justinian bishop Maximianus and his attendents . It matched Phillip's pert chatty shrewd piecemeal but somewhat vacuous personality. This also seemingly fit Philip's theater work and actorial aspirations, made Philip more approachable to other New Yorkers and amendable to that social scene, than Danny was. Probably that why Danny didn't like New Yorkers that much, it was all 'scenes' and affectations , all transience and nerves and impressions, like everyone was an ambitious, grasping yet clueless actor constantly trying to take cues from one another , and yet steal the show within the flimsy and illusionary backdrops. That and they were often rude and cliquish for no reason- they were eager to rank and mistreat you, unless you were premptively rude before them, or showed off, knew someone or had money. Danny had remembered in one gathering, some over dressed people had approached him, had near demanded Danny to tell them if he had any 'American Indian' blood and if he 'knew anybody like that', although Danny did not understand what that meant , what they meant by it, and why they had asked, or why they felt it was within their right to know. He had said tersely and impatiently 'no' and they had left him alone. But Danny was often left at arm's length, as he had always looked older and for being naturally more courteous, shy, reserved and serious, he was often asked if he were a doctor, even a minister. Danny knew too was not noticed as much by women, and not as successful at parties, maybe because of his look of 'gravitas' .Phillip liking to pull the mickey out of him, said faetiously that Danny resembled 'salt of the earth', the mind of a pedant with a body of a peasant, teased him for his quieter, bookish, more withdrawn doleful and 'heartfelt' demeanor. Sensing the truth of his brother's unkind comments, Danny preferred to throw himself into his books and studies instead. ) And Danny had at certain points 'strong' relationships with other men , a sense of kindred brotherhood, or had them as mentors, had liked and admired them. But that strength of bond, that asethetic appreciation had never manifested in any definitive sexual urge or in any passionate physical response for them. There was a tepid cozy companionable warmth, sometimes a irking spike of competitiveness, or plain dislike but no fire. There was no click. No deep seeded hunger. No draw and pull. No salt. From time to time he had looked at other men, and had questioned himself objectively, wondered if he looked long enough, something might occur or happen to him, like being violently struck off a horse. But it had not and never did. Danny had never thought about a man like how he had Ellen or Elaine. No man had ever approached him with that kind of interest so Danny had never had to reassess himself or wonder if he was emitting a certain energy or persona. Ergo he assumed he did not, because it wasn't there to emit or to personify. Danny could imagine a 'union' with a man but always as an alien possiblity , but it seemed dissonant, unappealing, and moreover false because it did not tempt or titilate him, he did not want to experience that. Theoretically though, anomalies happened. Danny knew it were in some realm of obscure possiblity, that he could wake up, and find himself wildly and obessively in love with a man tommorow, like he could wake up in another bewildering and foreign place without remembering how he got there. But with who? Richard? That made him want to choke with laughter. Even so, it was an extreme improbabilty. Danny's sexual emotions and compulsions , as soon as they began and in a way that eluded his conscious understanding , had always been profoundly compelled towards and directed unwaveringly towards women , running throughout his life like the current of a teeming river. There had been a few- but not many girls over the years , Henrietta Barr, Clara Glodowski, Mallory Corner, Lottie Prescott, and an Amanda 'Something'. Danny regarded them and their times together fondly but hadn't remained friends with them after their love 'affair' had ended. It was a curious thing, that many sexual and romantic relationships could completely exclude friendship and vice versa. But like a compass, ingrained in him as much as his interest in science which also had not wavered but only grown and matured (coincidentally, it started around the same time, 13 and 14) was his sexual and romantic interest in women, which had done the same. Danny was innately interested in being around women, in their bodily presence, for that intangible feminine quality they had. After that, there had never been the need to disprove or remove any uncertainty about it. That made him fortunate he now supposed.

Danny felt fortunate right now. No man made him as happy as Therese had, in this moment, or could by sitting on his lap. Or those other girls preceding her. His former girlfriend's names signified something that was no longer there. Now that Therese was with him and within him, all his prior experience with other women was forgotten like a kind of amnesia.

"Then what happened?" Therese asked him curiously.

"It very quickly passed." Danny replied.

She fell quiet.

He reached over and put out his cigarette in a nearby ashtray.

"Terry." Danny rumbled in her ear. "Will you ... ever with someone else?"

He did not need to say anything more or explicate the question. Therese understood perfectly what he meant.

He offered the ashtray to her.

She put out her cigarette as well.

"Another woman." Therese shook her head as she smothered her cigarette into his ash. "No."

Danny put the ashtray back.

"Thats what matters. Or rather what makes it not matter." Danny smiled slowly into her ear.

"What do you mean." Therese swallowed.

" I mean you're young. You'll change. You'll forget." Danny said with a tone of finality , that it was finshed. Done for good.

At least for his sake, he hoped so.

He wanted to say: _You've already changed Therese_

As if he could make it so. Could deign to be that person who could and would change her. Knowing time preceded him , as time was a far greater and more persusive a force, and it would change Therese more than he ever could.

After a pause Therese said in a subdued voice, almost lost and forlorn sounding. "...But I don't feel young."

 _Neither do I._ He thought.

Certain feelings, and people and situations made one feel ageless.

"You may not feel it. But in truth, you are." Danny repeated it. Needing to hear it himself. "You'll forget. It may not seem so, but its already in the past. You have to wait a little longer to remember that. You just need time and it will grow better. Whether it's now or down the road it will happen. You will change."

That statement was meant to comfort her. Clarify things. As he had done before.

Clearly it did not.

Therese only frowned deeper- as if more bereft and troubled , like she were suppressing something rising and growing within rapidly. Her expression becoming more frayed, and more distressed and drawn. Danny could tell Therese wanted to talk about Carol again. Talk to a friend, or talk to him about it .

Danny knew that, but right now, Danny did not want that. He wanted Therese to forget.

Could he do that? Make her forget?

Could anyone, or anything do that?

Danny brought Therese's head to lean into his chest, wanting so much, but unsure what he wanted. Wanting Therese to feel his solidity and stature, to hear his heart beat and to feel cradled and safe and contained in his limbs, both firm, warm and welcoming. It felt paternal this want. Maybe selfish. It took advantage of his largeness and how diminutive she seemed in comparison.

Therese whispered up at him. "And how will I manage - until then?"

"You will. You'll manage." Danny told her softly. "I promise. It will be alright. I'm here now and I'd like to help you Terry."

"I don't doubt that." Therese whispered up at him. "You always been of such help to me Danny."

His heart pounded within him, as if it were being slowly intentionally wrenched. "Good. I've always wished to be... of use to you." He managed to say.

Danny brought up her chin and cupped it with a tilt of his hand.

The time felt suddenly right.

"Therese." He said after a pause. "I'm going to kiss you now. Do you mind?"

She shook her head.

Leaning in, he pressed Therese's moist and reddened mouth to his lips again.

More forcefully and substantially this time.

Therese let him, her head falling back into his shoulder. Let him kiss her, mingling his tenderness and roughness all at one. His need and his want. She took shallow breaths through her nostrils, as his kiss deepened and what felt like a collaspe, she finally kissed him back, her arms around him, her pale neck leaning back agianst the bulge of his arm like an act of supplication, his arm that lay on the back of the sofa.

Danny felt Therese easing and relax in his arms. Trusting him. Or appreciating the closeness he offered to her.

With a shuddering sigh, Danny kissed her over and over. He kissed from the corner of her lips, to her jaw line, the treble cleft curl of her ears. A hand of his ventured from the side of her cheek, down her long neck to her exposed collar bone, stroking it back and forth, close to her breasts.

His eyes on hers, their mouths millimeters apart, tentatively, Danny's finger tips very lightly brushed the swell and fullness of Therese's breasts through the fibers of her dress .

"Did you ever enjoy yourself with Richard ?" Danny hummed and kissed her lips in pecks between his uttered words. Flooded with a need to hold her , he shoved his head to her neck and embraced Therese almost painfully. He was surprised at the calmness and the ease with which this question came. Once again, Danny did not have to specify what he meant by the question.

"No...When I was with Richard. I... didn't enjoy it at all." Therese breathed in admission in his arms, her arms encircling around him. "We did it... about two times. Both times were... awful."

In the same way, Danny and Therese could discuss poetry, they could discuss sex and other intimate matters, honestly. But wasn't poetry intimate. As their thoughts, as sex was.

Danny would never tell her he wanted to be a writer as a child now

Danny nodded understandingly. As he did, his finger trailed, and trickled and skittered down Therese's torso. Feeling the rise and fall ribs as she breathed. Her waist and how it synced pleasing inwards, just so. Her curves of her body. He stared down at it. Therese had a extraordinary body. It was very warm and present, as was his before her's. He wanted to touch her body with all the aspects of his own, like how they could talk, disclosing everything or they didn't have to. He almost winced, how he was tempted to use both hands to retrace Therese's body over its curves incessantly, rhythmically over and over as a sculptor might. His hand wandered behind her tentatively, stroking and rubbing appreciatively back and forth down her back and shoulders in small circles . The muscles in them were lithe, and incredibly well-formed, curvaceous. He wanted to kiss them as well. Suddenly Danny wanted hear her laugh again. Even though Therese was not serious as before, she was still far too serious. But so was he. He said. " Yes. I suspected as much. Richard wouldn't be the kind..."

Danny didn't have to finsh that sentence.

To give you pleasure. He was going to say.

Richard didn't seem to the type to be a good in bed. Although he complained Therese was frigid, and didn't 'give it up enough', in a way, Richard had not wanted her to 'give it up'. If she had, Richard would have quickly become disinterested with that obession, and gotten bored like he had with other girls. In the same way, he might proudly boast of an sexual exploit, but it in truth, may have been a deeply unsatisfying experience for both parties. Deep down, Richard regarded women as non-sexual and non-intellectual beings as it made it easier for him to deal with them . Women were a sort of activity, an experience, he professed, a hobby that he might master if not for being so challenging and such a big investment of time. It what have saved Richard from the exertion and embarassment of not having a deeper interest in them , and not wanting or being able to please them.

And whether Therese had enjoyed herself with Carol, if Carol had pleased her, Danny would not ask.

Danny asked gently, plainly. "Do you think you'd might enjoy yourself with me Terry?"

Therese looked down almost shyly. "I... honestly don't know."

She put her slender hand tenatively on his.

When she raised her head and stared up at him, she appeared unafraid.

"But the time you kissed me in your room. Your hands on my shoulders." Therese confirmed. " It was a pleasant memory."

Danny was silent, warm with nostalgia. It was a pleasant memory for him too.

"I'm glad then..."After a punctuated pause, Danny said. "But we can do whatever you'd like."

He went on. " Although I've drank quite a bit and my flight is soon ...and I'm not entirely collected my things and packed Terry as you can see. And there's a ... sense of strain... "

Danny's hand closed around hers as he spoke. Why hadn't he packed? He had gotten distracted with studying and reading (again) . To another woman, he might not be so upfront with these concerns. But having their shared sense of seriousness, and a rapport that was both comfortable yet fraught with something- more than friends but not quite lovers, and knowing who Therese was and who she had been, allowed him this luxury to speak freely. He sighed appreciatively . He didn't have this with his other friends. And the drink had relaxed him and tired his body. It wasn't like him, to drink before a flight.

"I don't think I could perform for my best for you tonight . " Danny admitted sheepishly. He felt exposed but not uncomfortable, knowing that perhaps that was how he should feel. "So its fine. We don't need to do anything. We can do nothing. Or we can give eachother pleasure in other ways, without it. Or I much rather I just give you pleasure, if you'd prefer."

Therese stared at him, amazed again.

"...Alright." She said. " We can try."

Danny looked back in amazement himself.

"Try what." He managed to say.

"...To please one another." Therese said very quietly. "I think we ought to."

..." Danny found himself, frowning in disbelief.

 _Wasn't it too soon?_ He thought.

Danny knew it was too soon.

"Can we." Therese added. " But I don't want to make you late for your flight, or if you'd rather not-"

It stung. That reminder of that severance. The refutation of his already impossible fantasy of him and Therese running away , living in California together.

"No no. It doesn't matter." Danny swiftly reassured her. "If thats what you'd like, if it'd please you."

It didn't matter. He'd miss this flight. He'd miss every flight from now on, if she wanted.

"And if it doesn't Danny?" Therese swallowed. "If it causes pain?"

"Then tell me so, if its no good, then we'll quit and stop." Danny took the bottle (that in another moment of amnesia forgotten he had put down) and another necessary gulp of his beer.

Therese said. "You make it sound so simple."

"It is simple." Danny said. He said it , like a friend, like he was doing this as her good dependable friend. " As it should be. Its very simple my dear."

She stared at him .

" Alright darling." Danny said again, with surety. He had wanted to call her some kind of endearment for the longest time. He took deep satisfaction in being able to say it. "We can try. Would you come with me."

Therese tried to pick herself off the swoop and divet of his lap. Instead he helped her stand by the elbow, and then picked her up off her feet.

Danny liked to pick women up when he took them to bed.

She allowed him, easily, almost as she was expecting him to do this.

"You're very light Therese." He commented.

She said nothing to that.

Carrying and placing Therese on the bed, Danny sat down besides her.

"Would you like to take off your own clothes Terry." He asked politely.

"Why... don't you do it." Therese said near reticent. How she said it was reminiscent of her more introverted prior self. But the fact that she said it, felt she could instruct him, with an self-collected unassuming authority that was unlike that former self.

Danny did so. He knelt down and felt obedient, servile, but not demeaned, or condescended to. Quietly, smiling somberly like an archiac Grecian statue, he began with her shoes. She helped him by raising her leg, pointing her feet towards him.

He took them off, and let her shoes drop to the floor and saw her bare feet through the guaze of her stockings. He put his hand on them, and held her stocking feet in his palms for a few seconds. Afterwards Danny moved up, to undo her black shining buttons down the front of her dress.

Her breath hitched slightly as he did it so carefully, concentrating fully on the task. Once he undid, the last one he helped slide off her dress down, tugging it gently off her body.

She was wearing a cream colored shapely slip with her stockings underneath.

"And your clothes?" Therese said, as if to address the inequality of the situation.

Heeding her ,Danny stood and took off his jacket. He pulled his black sweater over his head to reveal his white T-shirt. He took the T-shirt too, so he was shirtless.

Danny saw Therese eyes travel and scan over his bare chest. The muscles of his arms and shoulders. How much she saw of him, with a painter's eyes.

Suddenly afraid, Danny decided he would keep his pants on for the time being.

That was too intense, having Therese's eyes on his completely nakedness, along with his eyes on her nakedness at the same time...

"You're very handsome Danny." Therese told him this without any particular emotion, like it were a inarguable fact, like someone might tell someone its raining.

Danny wondered how this could be. How Therese could be drawn to his appearance. He looked nothing like Richard Semco.

Or like Carol Arid for that matter.

"Thank you for saying that." Danny remarked, as if puzzled by her compliment .

"Didn't other girls tell that to you before?" Therese said, and attempted a smile.

"No. They didn't. " Danny admitted . if they had, he couldn't remember.

He then sat down, and shifted over.

"But you... You're beautiful Terry. " He then stared at her, eyes widening as he just realized it, staring at her half dressed, the long expanse of her tapered legs, the beginning and sculpted rise of her breasts still contained and confined in her bra. The words from his unsent letter arose. "You're heavenly even. How beautiful you are. You don't even ascertain it-"

He was silenced with Therese's lips pressed over his mouth, like someone might flinch.

In response, Danny seized her in his arms, like someone might catch someone who was fainting, falling.

Therese's hands fell invitingly onto his back.

They kissed just like this, hungrily, fastened in each others arms , Danny gradually tipping her, little by little into the headboard.

Drawn into and inflamed by their long breathless kissing, Danny wished to know Therese better and uncover more of her.

Danny lowered his head between her legs and thighs. Close to her, his fingers skittered on her knees and pulled her stockings down, near tearing them, unrolling them, he peeled them aside like a layer of skin.

"You can lean back, relax. Lie down for me, if you want darling." He whispered ardently as he slid back up, now breathing hard himself.

Danny applied his mouth to kiss her lips again, Therese's panting feathering agianst his heated skin. He kissed every part of Therese's face. As he did, he slid her straps down down her smooth shoulders, then slowly slid down the cups of her bra to expose her smooth bare breasts, his hands flying up to hold and caress them. With a near inaudible moan,Danny slid her slip further down to her hips, then kissed down her neck, her collar bones and between the valley of her breasts, to kiss her navel, her expanse of skin soft, pliant and warm. Heaven he thought . This was heaven.

He heard Therese gasp. Her fingers finding his dark hair, pulling it up gently, clenching into it, then trembling upon his nape. She was shivering all over. Her eyes were closed.

Danny rose up to survey her expression.

She was near undressed beneath him, in her silken cream colored undergarmets, he still mostly clothed except his bare upper half.

Therese opened her eyes.

"Danny." Her hazel eyes stared up him, enormous.

Danny said nothing, staring back down at her transfixed.

At the trembling terrified pain on her face.

Danny's, eyes were also huge, lips compressed together.

Was Therese scared he might kill her? Put his hands on her throat and strangle her prostrated as she was on the bed? Abuse or force himself on her?

Instead Danny was entirely still. Paralyzed as if made of stone . Suddenly, frightened himself. He was desperately afraid of his capacity to hurt her, or the fact that she thought that he might harm her terrified him. Like if he make a single movement his body might break in half.

As was she. She was still. Motionless. Pinned in place against the bed spread, a elegant butterfly on a cork board.

He waited.

He would never hurt her. Never. He loved Therese. He loved her. He wanted to tell her that.

"Therese." Instead, Danny finally croaked in a stangled voice . "What is it."

"I miss her." Therese finally whispered, and chattered up at him. "I... love her."

A dealthy chill passed through him. As did the simplicity of the statement. Like a premonition of the worst kind.

Danny stared at the young woman's pale and broken expression.

One that so closely matched his own.

And how horrified, horribly frightened and confused it was. As if Therese had upon opening her eyes, had no human idea how she had gotten there. As if she realized she had only moments of life left, having lost something that could never be replaced and completely essential.

And by instinct- one to call it instinct, as he did not know where it came from, not from his conscious analytic mind (the same way he had kissed her in his old room) , Danny grabbed the sides of the duvet.

With a hurried swoop of his arms, Danny wrapped the blanket around Therese, like someone might swaddle a distressed child, or bind a broken limb. Both forcefully and tenderly.

Having wrapped and contained her tightly, Danny laid, heaved his body quickly atop her her blanketed form.

He swung his arms around her, the blanket between them and embraced her, to keep her warm. Protected .

"Therese." Danny said deeply. Knowing what he should say ."If you need to cry, just cry."

There was a long silence as he laid on top of her, holding her, wrapped in the bed spread blanket.

So long Danny thought perhaps he made a presumptuous statement.

Maybe his instinct was wrong. Maybe Therese did not need to do that after all. Maybe all she needed to do was to leave. Or to do something else entirely.

Gradually though, Danny heard it.

He felt frist- it in his arms. Tremors. Vibrations. The tension quaking within her limbs, the sound of harsh breathing under him, nearly imperceptible, then growing faster and faster, more urgent and irrepressible.

Danny realized this, as his own breath was held.

He realized he had been listening to a silent but valiant struggle. A fighting for breath, the snapping of the last cobwebs of composure

Finally a long crackling strangled sob.

Danny said sadly. "Oh Therese."

That seemed to do it.

Therese cracked.

With an excruciating sound, the young woman burst into sobbing tears under him - it was not even a proper cry or wail. There were no prettified or childish peals to it, not a fit of a easy understood borrowed and theatrical hysterica. The sounds Therese made were newly wrought, and deep yet shrieking, broken and raw, racking and like a wreckage bursting and rippling throughout her entire body.

Unlike any he had heard before.

It was a shock. Danny's eyes were still enormous, mouth dropping open. He had never had a woman, or anyone cry before him in this way, and so close to him.

In some ways, this was more intimate than sex

Therese smaller body seized and shook, even bound and contained in the blanket and pressed under his body, as if it might abandon itself and shatter apart without his containment. Whatever was contained within Therese was enormous. Bigger than them both. She was giving herself over to it.

In response, Danny pressed himself harder down, his body weight to her to still and steady her contain and , hold her quaking pieces together, as if he were an anchor, a buoy riding on her radiated pain. It was like riding the horse again, he was being carried forth on it, racing up this hill as one. The bed beneath them almost seemed to darken and sway, the corners of the room closing in. Therese's gasps and miserable cries and bottomless moans were so close to his ear, like they coming from within himself. Danny's head was in the plane of her face, the crook of neck. He could smell and feel Therese's tears rolling down her crumpled face and his , see her crooked wounded looking mouth, her weeping spilling onto him,and soaking him, into his neck that smelt like rain or cut grass by the salt and sea. That salt. Its salt.

He was conscious of that and nothing else.

Danny's eyes wrenched shut, and his teeth clenched together.

And meanwhile, Therese was babbling, trying to explain something through her whimpers, groans and warbles. It was nonsensical, crazy speech about a painting in a library. About melancholy. Someone called Ms. Robichek. Her Mother. Some woman called Sister Alicia and a pair of gloves. Her letters. And different places. South Dakota. New York. Heaven and Hell. Of loneliness. Of abandoment. How she missed her. She missed her , she missed her. She loved her. O Carol. Nearly incoherent- and utterly, sometimes purely crying. Crying in pure agony.

Meanwhile Danny, features knit and teeth grit painfully together, near rocking and shuddering himself, was experiencing his own sort of agony

As if something in him were dying.

It was an agony that comes with loss. As if Therese were weeping out his own pain and hopelessness for him, as he were her and he were him , their atoms co-mingling, but of him it was a pain he was uncertain of its source. Maybe it had always been there. Her words, though he did not understand their meeting, chiseled at him, burned into him like a brand, were a kind of transference.

Danny realized was one of the most beautiful moments of his life. And the most painful.

And even more painful, Danny knew he would never be privileged in this same way again.

It was so rare what they had, what they were. Danny realized: Therese was possibly his best friend. The best friend he might have, or could ever made.

This was unusual, as with some men , they were incapable of friendships with women or any kind of friendship at all. For some women the same was true

And the fact Danny desired and loved Therese as a woman, did not the negate that friendship. It only served it, made it stronger and purer. More haunting and un-eradicable.

But this was what they both needed. Instinctively Danny knew. Therese had not mourned over Carol- who while still was far away, Carol was the nearly oppressive watchful presence in the room with them. Therese had wanted something to eradicate the memory of Carol, in the same way one might need a casual fling, in order to erase the last touch of a last lover but Therese has needed this kind of embrace instead, to express the grief of it before she could return and confront the source of where it had all occured. Therese had needed Danny as the last link to that now gone woman, as a companion in this ordeal, in order to confront this matter , bolstered with the strength she claimed to see in him, and she believed he had, that had made her seek him and befriend him in the frist place.

And Danny- didn't need to make it with a woman, he had had done it before, would likely do it again. Danny needed at this moment, to be close to Therese in a way no one else was to her , for her to be close to him - to his dearest friend in a moment of complete honesty, that was only possible and could only transpire in this minute space of time, that she and he wouldn't have again. This was (besides wanting Therese) what he had been seeking on this drive, what had compelled him to find Therese , once knowing she and Carol had ended, understanding she required him to clarify things, for what no one else could provide for her. The crucial purpose he might serve. The sense of her need.

And Danny admittedly felt angry. Furious at Carol , for hurting Therese in such a way until she was reduced to this. But there was nothing to be done about that.

Therese loved Carol regardless. Even through this pain, she had not wanted it any differently.

Eventually , after a long time, Therere's sobs quieted and subsided.

Seeing this, Danny's grip little by little, loosened on her.

Althought he did not want to let go. Through this, his chest hurt. His eyes hurt. Everything hurt so acutely.

Nonetheless Danny extracted and carefully lifted himself off her.

It had passed.

The young woman seemed exhausted, bereft in its wake.

"...I'm sorry." She whimpered.

"For what." Danny said, genuinely not knowing why she should be sorry. Why anyone should be sorry . Was it that they would not make love now? That was entirely out of the question. The desire for it was already gone. A distant memory. Reduced to a pin point like a shoebox was used to view an eclipse or the reverse end of a telescope.

Therese didn't feel the need to say why.

Instead Therese whimpered. "You're not angry at me, are you?"

"No. Ofcourse not." Danny said sincerely. "Why would I be. "

"But I've... I've completely wasted your time. "

He said. "No time with you is ever wasted."

"I'm so sorry." Therese threw a hand over her eyes. "I'm sorry Danny. Its all my fault."

"Don't be." He said gently, over and over as if to comfort her and slid her hand away from her face with his own. "Don't be sorry Terry. There's nothing to be sorry for."

She swallowed. "What a fool I am. I'm a fool. I'm awful. Just awful."

"You're not a fool. " Danny told her in all seriousness. "You're an angel Therese."

Therese laughed at that, helplessly, still slightly tearful.

Eventually, she unwrapped herself from the blanket, but still covered herself with it, and stared at the ceiling.

"Now what are you thinking." Danny asked her, sitting besides her.

"Of what you said in New York. About using things and throwing them away." She said.

Nonetheless Danny asked. "Did she do that to you"

"I shall do it." Therese smiled, eyes still reddened.

Although Danny got the feeling she just had.

Finally, he tenderly brushed her hair back from her forehead. "Then find someone you'll never want to throw away."

"Who won't wear out." She agreed.

He offered her his hand.

With a rueful smile, she pulled back up her slip and her straps, took his hand and sat up.

They both gathered their clothes and got dressed.

Like a good friend, Therese helped him fold up and pack the remainder of his things .

She even helped double check the room to see if Danny had not left something behind.

Downstairs she had stood besides him and watched Danny sign the bill and check out.

On the curb, it being the time, they caught Danny a cab to take him to the airport.

It was an eternal scene.

A man and woman on the street. Two friends saying goodbye.

They wouldn't be the frist, or the last time this would happen. Many people had and would say goodbye on this street, more probably even later this evening.

Suddenly Therese said, as if sensing his thoughts as a taxi decided to pull up. "Its classic..."

"Pardon." Danny said.

" Like how lines in a play are classic. The same line or words that hundreds of people will say to eachother, in different roles. Lines like... "I'll cross my heart and hope to die." Her voice faded. "Or oh my love'"

Or like he had said to her earlier today: ' _We have all the time in the world_."

Danny looked at her hard, his face weathered.

 _Cross my heart and hope to die. "_ He thought _."Oh my love."_

It occured to Danny he wished he had a photo of Therese, or a photo of him and Therese together, but he didn't.

It was too late now.

If only they had more time.

If only Danny had found her earlier.

If only.

" I know its a strange... and a rather subjective question... but what do you think a classic is Danny." Therese asked him.

Danny thought about it, with a long breath.

He felt suddenly exhausted, with a slump of his shoulders. Like something had been drawn out and tapped out of his spine, and his legs might buckle under him and he'd fall to the ground like a pile of kindling for limbs.

"... I think its something that is objective. Universal. Eternally relevant." Danny said tiredly, jaw clenched. "Eternally sensible and beautiful and appropiate. Something dignified while being... rudimentry. Something perfect... and absolutely... indestructible. "

The young woman seemed to absorb this answer into herself.

"But thats only what I think. What do you think Terry?" Danny asked in turn.

"I think ... a classic is a basic human suitation." Therese said .

Their eyes strung through eachother like a thread through a needle.

"Therese." Danny asked finally. "Are you sure you don't wish to come with me?"

Danny could envision her getting in the taxi with him, taking the plane. Leaving with one another. Neither of them looking back.

Or even more harrowing outcome. That they might get into this car, and somehow it might accidentally crash, that they might die together,their bodies found lifeless, tattered yet entwined . If Therese wanted that , or felt such a way , Danny would be willing. He would.

The insane lonely and irrational question lodged in his throat .

 _If we were to die, would you like to die with me? For us to die now, together ?_

Therse said nothing, her eyes fixed, directed at the taxi infront of and before them.

After a excruciating silence, Danny said. " You needn't answer now."

With that, Therese turned to face him.

"...Will you write to me." Danny said, eyes locked on hers.

"Of course." She said.

He thought about it then instructed her . "Write me in three months."

"Three months. And not before?"

"No." Danny said, staring at her steadily. "Thats a fair time isn't it?"

Therese stared at him.

"Yes. Alright. Thats a promise." She promised. Knowing she would break it.

Knowing she'd forget.

Danny knew he would never hear from Therese again

Blinded with pain, he smiled at her anyways.

They shook hands. Then embraced quickly.

"Goodbye Danny."

"Not goodbye Terry. So long." Danny said, her still in his arms. "So long."

"I'll see you." He thought he heard her say behind him, but was not sure of it.

He got in the car and smiled at Therese through the window.

Therese's lingering salt scent still soaked on his neck, like the tinge and presence of the ocean.

Therese smiled back at him, her eyes gleaming with a film of tears.

The car started.

Helplessly, Danny watched Therese, watched her disappear, his smile disappearing with it, getting smaller and smaller from the taxi window, as the taxi took him away from her.

Danny turned around to look ahead.

There was no point in looking back.

Danny had to think of the journey ahead. Now he would catch his plane and start his new life in California.

Away from all of them. Phillip. Richard . Carol. And from Therese.

Leaving it and her all behind him.

With time, he would change too. He would forget her.

No.

He did not turn his head for one last time. Danny had gone too far. He knew he could not see Therese anymore.

There was no need to give up hope.

No. Not yet.

There was still three months.

Then he'd know for certain.

Danny could wait longer, but how much longer?

How much long precisely?

Would some part of him he always retain that hope?

Until then Danny had that hope. He would hold onto it like that burning match.

Like one might, having nothing else, in the dark.

Until it singed him. Razed him down to ash and smoke.

There was no need to give up hope yet.

Or this feeling of being forever flung out of space.

He might hear word from her.

There was still those whole three months.

There were still three months.

Three months

Three months.


End file.
